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Update:3920 - The REVAMPED REALITY update is live!
Hey everyone! I'll cut right to the chase... The REVAMPED REALITY update is now live on the default branch! Check out the new trailer: Revamped Reality (build 3920) features: *Better overall performance *Faster level loading *VR integration ("experimental-vr" branch, info below) *Added Cockpit view *UI revamp (with mouse support) *Challenge and Soccer mode improvements *Improved car color customization *Improved player names in multplayer *New physics engine *New level editor assets *More bug fixes In the interest of transparency I made sure to post in full detail every experimental changelog since the last major release (12 builds). Check out the process here: Unity 5 experimental thread: http://steamcommunity.com/app/233610/discussions/0/530646080845947820/ Detailed changelog: http://refract.com/post/130321399096/revamped-reality-is-live-beta-3920-changelog You've probably seen me reference this update as the "Unity 5" update in previous posts. That's because underneath the hood we made a fundamental engine upgrade from Unity 4 to Unity 5. This enables much faster level loading, overall improved performance, and a host of other behind-the-scenes changes. In order to achieve these changes Unity 5 required a complete rewrite of our wheel physics. After a few months of back-and-forth with the community, Jason has been able to rewrite the underlying physics so that it matches (and in many ways improves upon) the physics in our previous builds. On top of the engine upgrade we've also made a core change to the UI. All menus have been upgraded to allow for mouse controls, and non-widescreen aspect ratios are now much better handled. Color customization has also been directly integrated into the main menu and is even accessible from the Game Lobby. Finally, Oculus DK2 support with SDK 0.7 has been added alongside an official cockpit mode (available with or without VR). Currently it's available in an "experimental-vr" branch which you can access as shown below. We're looking for any feedback from Oculus users and VR fans as we continue experimenting. How to enable experimental VR in Distance: What's next? What are the plans for Adventure mode? We still have quite a bit to finish before Distance is done. Getting Unity 5 integrated was fortunately one our last "big" technical hurdles before shipping Distance, so moving forward a lot of the upcoming work is content creation and mode improvements. As you may have also noted, we've been improving and adding to Adventure mode all year. To maximize the impact of playing the final story we've decided to only release this new content as a complete package near the final release. While it might be tough waiting to play through the new content, we really think it'll be worth it in the end after we've massaged out all of the rough edges. On top of finishing Adventure mode, we still need to wrap up our announcer implementation, replay system, extra vehicles, make several improvements to our other modes, and add a few more level editor features. It's become quite a large game for our small team so as we approach release we're doing our best to make smart decisions on what's truly core to Distance being a shipped game. As always, you can watch the experimental builds for specific details on what we're testing each week. So, when is the final release? Of course, the natural question then is "when will Adventure mode (and the full game) be done?" We've been talking a lot about it internally, and being realistic we can't see Distance being content complete by the end of 2015. There's obviously still a lot to do, and we don't see a logical reason to ship an incomplete game earlier than we have to. While we think it's possible to be tech complete by the end of 2015, being content complete (aka final release) is looking like Q1/Q2 2016. If you’re anxiously awaiting the release all I can say is that we’re moving as fast as we can while still retaining a certain level of quality. It would be even slower without the continual feedback from the early access community. Thanks as always for being a part of this exhilarating development. One final teaser... That's not all folks. I'd heavily recommend joining Speedy Saturday this weekend for another exciting announcement! I hope to see you online! - Jordan (@torcht for more frequent dev updates)